Buffalo Gal

by Mary Connealy

  Copyright

  ISBN 978-1-60260-077-5

  Copyright © 2008 by Mary Connealy. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of Truly Yours, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., PO Box 721, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.

  Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. niv®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  One

  Buffy Lange had been at her new job for fifteen minutes. It was going to take a miracle to last out the hour.

  “Don’t let him through that gate!” She sprinted toward the fence.

  The buffalo hit the metal panel with a clang of horns on steel. A dozen wranglers started shouting and rushing to support the slipping barrier between a buffalo and freedom. The young bull stubbornly refused to pass through the alleyway of metal panels. The massive brute swung his head, snapping a hinge holding the gate in place.

  Buffy, coming from inside another pen, grabbed the top of the fence, vaulted it, and beat the wranglers to the action. Snatching the slipping tubular steel, she shoved her shoulder into it, closing the gap.

  Two thousand pounds of cranky bison rammed the wobbling panel.

  Her shoulder was no match. Buffy fell backward into the mud with the gate on top of her.

  The buffalo’s legs tangled in the open spaces of the slatted panel, and it stopped.

  With the wind knocked out of her, Buffy looked eye to eye with the frantic animal who snorted hot breath in her face. The bull swung his horns, and adrenaline sizzled through Buffy’s veins like an electric current.

  The crushing steel gate rang and shuddered from the blow, but it blocked the goring horns. One sharp hoof scraped between Buffy’s arm and her stomach. It ripped her sleeve and scraped off some of her hide. One last enraged snort and the beast plunged forward and was gone, its hind legs missing her by inches.

  Screams and shouts echoed in the ranch yard.

  Buffy prayed for that miracle.

  Needing direct intervention from God to keep her hired men alive and herself employed looked bad on a résumé.

  The panel wrenched off and hands ran down her arms and legs. She opened her eyes, and Wolf Running Shield, her foreman, crouched over her. His black braids, shot through with gray, slid over both his shoulders and dangled over her head. “Are you okay?” His bottomless ebony eyes flashed with worry. “Did he land a hoof on you?”

  Her abused lungs started working, and she dragged in the hot July air. “I’m fine.”

  “Mommy!” The bloodcurdling scream came from Sally, her three-year-old niece, supposedly confined to the house until the buffalo was safely penned.

  Everyone around Buffy vanished, running to the rescue. Buffy jerked her arms out of the mud and scrambled to her feet.

  A man, rigged out like a cowboy straight from the old West, raced his horse between the buffalo and Sally.

  “Hiyah!” the cowboy shouted and slapped his horse’s rump with an open hand. He thundered down on Sally a split second before the buffalo and snagged her by the front of her pink overalls. He swung Sally up in front of him, still at a full gallop.

  The buffalo changed course and went after the horse and rider.

  “Where’s a tranquilizer gun?” Buffy noticed Wolf dashing toward the nearest barn and hoped he was getting one.

  The horse headed right toward a cluster of scrambling men gathered to watch the buffalo join the family. The rider, with inches between his horse’s heels and the lowered horns of the buffalo, wheeled his mount away from the crowd.

  The buffalo’s horns hooked at the horse. They missed by a hair breadth.

  The cowboy held Sally, still screaming, perched high in front of him. His horse danced away from the charging bull and began zigzagging across the open yard to avoid people. The man moved with his horse like they were one creature.

  The shaggy beast lost interest in the horse and rider, whirled away, and charged toward the prairie that surrounded the Buffalo Commons Ranch.

  For a split second, the adrenaline and the beauty of the buffalo made Buffy feel like she could fly.

  The great shaggy beasts were meant to run free on the boundless South Dakota hills and prairies. But these hills and prairies had bounds, and her buffalo was out of them.

  The cowboy yelled again and kicked his horse, galloping toward the ranch house. He set Sally down beside Jeanie. He took two seconds to speak some words to both of them that made Sally fling herself against her mother’s legs and Jeanie cross her arms and scowl. He pulled a rifle out of a stock on his saddle. Yelling, he bent low over his saddle horn and took off after the disappearing buffalo, his intentions lethal.

  “He’s going to shoot Bill.” Buffy whirled away from the angry man on his charging horse.

  Wolf ran up beside her with the tranquilizer gun. “You drive!”

  They dashed for the pickup, hooked up to the trailer that only seconds ago held the prize bull. With quick, efficient motions, Wolf unhooked the stock trailer while Buffy jumped in the driver’s seat. Wolf threw himself into the passenger’s side. They tore out of the yard and into the grass that stretched for miles in all directions in this fertile valley circled by the peaks of the Black Hills.

  The buffalo appeared on a rise then vanished.

  “The land seems so flat,” Buffy muttered, her foot shoved all the way to the floorboard.

  The rider appeared, closing the gap between himself and the buffalo. Buffy lay on her horn, but the rider didn’t look back. If anything, he leaned down farther on his horse’s neck, trying to get more speed out of the big bay quarter horse.

  “It’s deceiving. There are low rolling hills right up to the mountains.” Wolf loaded the rifle with able efficiency.

  “He wants to kill the bull before we get there,” Buffy yelled. “I can’t believe this. The man can’t possibly intend to shoot down an animal as valuable as that buffalo.”

  “That’s Wyatt Shaw,” Wolf said, shaking his head. “He’s the second-biggest rancher around here, after our boss, Leonard. He hates buffalo, and he hates what we’re doing. I think he’s been looking for an excuse to put a bullet in a buff ever since we moved the first head onto the ranch.”

  Shaw raised his gun. There was a sharp crack of rifle fire.

  The buffalo swerved in a different direction but charged on. He seemed unhurt, but a buffalo could run a long time after it had been wounded.

  Buffy tried to coax more speed out of the truck. They roared up the crest of one of the endless swells of land and were airborne as they came over the top and dropped down. They gained on Shaw as Shaw gained on her buffalo. She jammed her foot more firmly on the accelerator.

  Shaw took aim. Another report cut her eardrums.

  The buffalo swerved sharply, now running at a right angle to Buffy. She cut across the angle, hoping to narrow the gap and get there first. Bill gave her a glance and swerved back the way he’d been going.

  The cowboy, still running flat out, turned and glared at her. Even from this distance, she saw straight into hazel eyes that shot sparks of golden fire at her. There was such fury burning there she wondered if her buffalo was the only one in danger.

  Shaw looked away and aimed his rifle. He fired.

  The buffalo turned
. Buffy veered across prairie, trying to cut it off.

  Wolf caught her arm. “Don’t do that. Keep going straight.”

  “Why? We can beat Shaw to Bill.”

  “Do it,” Wolf snarled. “Straighten it out.”

  Buffy didn’t like it. She was the boss, had been for almost thirty minutes now. But she needed to keep her eyes on the dipping and rolling prairie. She did as Wolf said just to keep things simple.

  Now Shaw and Bill were running at a ninety-degree angle to her. Shaw raised his gun and took careful aim.

  Wolf lifted his gun from the cab of the pickup. They were nearly within range.

  Shaw fired. The buffalo swerved away from the gunfire.

  “It’s almost impossible to hit anything from the back of a running horse or the cab of a bouncing truck,” Wolf said. “Stop when I say.”

  “Okay.” Buffy gripped the wheel with white knuckles. Her blood pounded until she heard it in her ears and her temples. Her arm burned from Bill’s scraping hoof. Her body felt like a time bomb vibrating before it exploded.

  Wolf nodded. “Keep going straight. That buff’ll keep to the low ground when he gets to that rise.”

  Shaw almost lay down on the back of his horse and steadied the gun across his arm. He fired. Bill stumbled.

  “He hit him,” Buffy said through her clenched teeth.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “He’s going to kill him before we get there,” Buffy raged.

  Her truck hit a rut that launched the front end into the air. They landed and bounced, and the underbelly of the truck grated against the ground.

  Bill ran steadily, as wild and beautiful as buffalo had been at God’s creation.

  Buffy tried to gain every second she could, even if it meant her rig was destroyed. That buffalo was more valuable than this shiny, new Ford.

  Bill took the low ground, just as Wolf had predicted. That turned him until he was headed almost straight toward them.

  Wolf shouted, “Stop!”

  Buffy wrestled the rig to a halt, tires skidding on grass.

  Wolf leaped out, graceful even with deep wrinkles cutting lines into the corners of his eyes. He braced the tranquilizer gun against the hood of the truck and settled his finger on the trigger.

  A whirl of dust caught up with the truck and swallowed them. To Buffy, everything suddenly seemed to be in slow motion. Sitting in the cab, her heart pounded, her nerves screamed, her blood coursed, pushing her to action.

  Wolf looked down the barrel of his gun. Bill charged closer, hooves drumming until the prairie shook.

  Shaw raced behind Bill, his horse’s hooves thundering along with the buffalo.

  Wolf sited his gun.

  Shaw leveled his rifle. Buffy knew he wanted the buffalo dead.

  That’s when she remembered to pray. She’d already asked God for a miracle when Sally was in a direct line between Bill and freedom. When she’d prayed, there, instantly—Wyatt Shaw.

  This buffalo hater was no answer to her prayers. She stifled her resentment at God. One more thing she needed to control.

  Bill closed to within a hundred yards, and still Wolf waited.

  Shaw charged behind the bull; he was close enough now that he couldn’t miss. Not even on a running horse. Buffy saw his cold fury and shuddered.

  Wolf waited, waited. Buffy almost saw Wolf’s Native American blood flowing cool and steady in his veins.

  The buffalo was a hundred feet away. Then fifty.

  Wolf exhaled slowly, held his breath. He fired.

  A bright red flag marked the dart’s direct hit on Bill’s densely furred chest. Bill kept coming, his hooves rolling with the steady beat of distant thunder. His horns gleamed with the sharp danger of lightning. He showed no sign of being drugged.

  Wolf held his ground.

  “You can’t shoot him again,” Buffy yelled as she swung her door open. “He can’t take that much sedative.”

  Shaw was almost on top of Bill. He could have leaned forward, and slapped him on the rear end. He leveled his gun forward, and Buffy saw him cock the hammer.

  Buffy slammed the truck door and ran to the front of the truck. To protect her bull, she’d tackle Wolf if he decided to shoot again.

  Wolf gave her one enraged glance. “Get out of here.”

  Buffy shouted to Shaw, “Don’t shoot him. We’ve got him under—”

  Suddenly Bill was on top of them, and Wolf vanished.

  Buffy stumbled backward, bumped into the truck grill, and barely missed those sharp, curved horns. Something tightened on her neck like she was being strangled, and with a speed that made her stomach swoop, she was airborne.

  She landed with a thud on the hood. Bill turned and smashed his wicked horns into the truck where she’d been.

  Wolf had her by the collar. He released her with a look of disgust. “Crazy woman.”

  Bill whirled away from the truck then charged again. He slammed into the front fender and shook the rig hard enough that Buffy slid sideways to the ground. Bill turned on her.

  Shaw’s horse burst past the buffalo, and he gripped the front of her shirt in both his fists. As if she weighed nothing, he hoisted her into the air and set her down facing him, her legs straddling his saddle, her face pressed against his chest. He set his horse to dancing and dodging just as he’d done with Sally.

  Wolf yelled, “It’ll take affect in another couple of minutes, Wyatt.”

  Shaw said, with a rage so icy it chilled the back of Buffy’s neck, “Great. I’ve got nothing better to do than keep this fool woman alive.”

  Buffy glanced up at the man who’d just saved her life. While Shaw was freezing her with his voice, he was burning her with his eyes. Buffy’s head was spinning from the pivoting of the horse and the snorting of the grouchy buffalo and, just maybe, from the scent of a strong man wrapped in leather and sweat and rage, holding her.

  For one second, she felt safe. She tightened her arms around Wyatt’s waist and held on tight as she wondered how long it had been since she’d allowed someone else to keep her safe. Then she remembered how strength could dominate and how that domination came larded with disrespect. She worked with men like that. She’d grown up with a man like that. She didn’t need to sit in the lap of a man like that.

  Bill stumbled to a halt.

  Buffy spun around to watch and whacked Wyatt in the face with streamers of muddy hair. He spit mud out of his mouth. “You’re as shaggy as your stupid buffalo.” Something her father would have said.

  Bill staggered, panting, still on his feet. Buffy held her breath. Bill sank to his front knees.

  Shaw shoved his rifle back in its sling.

  Shuddering with relief that Bill was sleeping and not dead, Buffy collapsed against Shaw’s strong chest and let herself be held for a minute. “Thank you.”

  Shaw snorted.

  Buffy remembered Bill might have a bullet in him. The adrenaline was still roaring through her veins, and suddenly it exploded with nowhere to go. The whole mess caught up with her—being crushed under the gate panel, Sally’s screams, the wild truck ride and the blazing gun, her near miss from Bill’s horns, and this cowboy’s grubby hands all over her.

  She grabbed the front of Wyatt Shaw’s black leather vest. She jerked him down. He didn’t bend, so she ended up lifting herself until they were nose to nose. “Are you crazy? Shooting at my buffalo like that?” She shook him like she’d seen a cat shake a rat. He didn’t budge, because he was twice her size and made, apparently, of forged steel, but she shook him anyway.

  “Did you hit him?” she demanded. She let go of one side of his vest because she needed her hand. She jabbed him right in the second button of his blue chambray shirt. “If that buffalo dies because of you, I’m going to have the sheriff haul you in to—”

  “Shut up,” he spoke in a voice so grating it left rasp marks on her eardrums. The tone froze the words in her throat. “If I’d wanted him dead, he’d be dead. So—just—shut—up! Your anima
ls are a menace.”

  Buffy leaned away from the rage.

  Shaw leaned closer. “I’ve got a right to defend what’s mine.”

  His nose touched hers. “I rode over to meet the new boss and ended up saving your daughter’s life.”

  He must mean Sally. Sally wasn’t her daughter. She’d have pointed out yet another way he was wrong, but he wasn’t done talking.

  “I saved your life.”

  Her life? Huh! Bill had been seconds away from collapsing. She’d have been just fine. Of course, a couple of seconds with a buffalo stomping on you was a long time.

  “But the thing that matters is—”

  What did that mean: matters? Her life mattered—

  “I saved my herd from having a bull buffalo running free in it. If I hadn’t been here to head him off, he could have spread disease to them. I could have lost a year’s income while my cattle were quarantined. And that’s not the only damage he could have done.” Suddenly his face turned red, and his fiery hazel eyes blazed like wildfire. “Your daughter isn’t the only little kid out here!”

  She ducked quickly and began mentally swearing out the warrant for his arrest once she got a doctor to diagnose her whiplash. And then she’d sue him for every penny he had.

  “I oughta sue you for every penny you have.” With a swift, reckless motion, he lifted her off his saddle horn. He unceremoniously plunked her onto the ground. “If I ever catch one of your buffalo running wild again, I’ll kill it, and then I’ll be at your place with the sheriff.” He wheeled his horse and took off at a gallop.

  Buffy opened her mouth to yell all the things that had been boiling inside of her.

  Wolf stepped between her and Shaw.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “I’m trying to turn your temper on me, which might save us from a million-dollar lawsuit.”

  Buffy looked for Shaw. He was just disappearing over a nearby rise. “Why shouldn’t I yell at him?” She decided to take Wolf at his word and aim her temper at him. “You heard the things he said. You saw him shooting at Bill. That buff is worth a fortune. He’s got the bloodlines the Commons needs. He’s practically irreplaceable.”

  Wolf looked over his shoulder in the direction Shaw had gone. Good, he seemed to be finally figuring out what Shaw had almost done.